中国社会责任投资 China SRI

Last week, we organized a CSR introductory training to a company in north China. During this training, we invited Stephen Frost from CSR Asia to do a  case study. He talked about the story of CocaCola in India. CocaCola in India has consequently met troubles about clean water, about food safety, etc. Stephen summarized with a saying "It is not about the truth". 

It is not about the truth, does not mean that truth is not important. It strengthens that only truth cannot settle all problems when dealing with corporate reputation crisis. The key is to show your willingness to communicate with stakeholders, and to establish trust with them. If a company is only satisfied with data and analysis of their lab, it is totally wrong. Public, media and sometimes the government would not take the truth very serious if the company is too arrogant, then will challenge the company further from all possible aspects. At that time, company will not have any opportunity to explain and defense. 

Actually, looking back at the Chinese market, similar cases happened. Examples are SKII of P&G, Heinz powder product, etc. Both were criticized by government or NGO. Their solutions were to send their products to the best lab and show the results to the public and media. However, it turned out to be not that affective. Why? it is not about the truth, but attitude.